That’s not what the US military is for. That’s not what our veterans do.
If we were talking about British gangsters laundering money for Trump, then, yes.
6 Likes
If during the election, Trump’s campaign team had a group of people working with GCHQ to hack US political targets, then use stolen data they exfiltrated in an effort to manipulate a US election (with the British government also producing fake news stories to promote Trump and attack Clinton, with a sea of British run sock puppets causing the disinfo to trend in social media), with GCHQ also running pentests, scans, and attacks on US election equipment, accompanied with promises and advocacy of what appeared to be political favors to the UK contrary to US interests, that would still be a huge fucking deal.
The fact that it’s an adversary rather than an ally does makes it even more serious, but doesn’t diminish the seriousness of a presidential campaign coordinating with a foreign power’s intelligence agencies to attack US targets with espionage and manipulate a US election.
18 Likes
Agree in principle but nobody else is playing sheriff for good as the US goes dark.
You have more faith in their morals than I do.
6 Likes
That might be a little overstated, which explains the lack of a coup, and the unlikeliness of one, fan-fiction aside of course.
1 Like
If the evidence connects to Trump himself, we may find out! There are those who argue that, under the theory of the unitary executive, it is counter to the structure of the Constitution for the president to be subject to prosecution from his own Justice Department. However, as far as Supreme Court precedent goes, there’s nothing to say that impeachment is the only way in which a president can be indicted. The Constitution only says that the House has the sole power of impeachment.
3 Likes
Reminded me of this and its from the same movie:joy:
Wait wait, from the same general series or something, apparently there’s more than one Monty Python ?
Theresa May doesn’t go around having her political opponents murdered.
Well, so is Russia. The Russians were our finest allies in the greatest conflict the world has ever known. “In the Second World War, out of every three dead, one was Russian.” My boss’s mother was decorated for heroism in the siege of Kiev; she put her life on the line to literally save the world from Nazi terror and hatred.
On the other hand, the British burned my ancestors out of their houses for questioning the divine right of kings, and we had to flee that country just ahead of a ravening mob (after which we declared war on them and kicked their limey buttocks right out of this New World we’d carved out of the American Indian). And, you know, last I checked Britain was leaving the EU because of racist politics.
So while I do recognize the reality of what you are saying, pleading special cases is no defense. Either the Logan Act applies to Britain and Israel or it does not apply to Russia; you we cannot have it both ways.
Honestly, if any political entity - not just the DNC - wants to send communications among themselves that will cause them to lose elections, I sincerely hope they get hacked every single damn time, and I really don’t care at all if foreign nations help that process happen. If amoral scam artists don’t want to lose elections, they should stop trying to scam people and instead deal fairly and openly.
Think of how much worse this could have been - the hackers could have blackmailed the DNC instead of simply releasing the info.
THIS. Now this is a great response, and exactly what people want to hear about Donald Trump’s Russian connections. Not that he did what hundreds of other successful national politicians have done, which is deal with foreign governments in possible violation of the wink-nod-wink Logan Act. Tell people about the Russian mob connections, that’s the real deal right there. That’s something for people to care about! Sane Americans want better relations with Russia - and they know that the DNC got nothing they didn’t bring upon themselves - but Americans don’t want organized crime to gain political power.
1 Like
I think there is a large difference between being wary of the regime of a country and fanning prejudice against their citizens. My understanding from LGBT friends is that Russian citizens are by and large very nice and accepting and have more in common than not, but their government and their extremist factions are terrifying and currently setting the agenda for them as a state. It sounds remarkably similar to our situation in the US, and to Canada when they were under Harper.
I’d go as far as to say that right now the citizens of many nations have more in common with eachother than they do with their respective governments, and vice versa that their governments have more in common with eachother than they do their citizens.
9 Likes
One, transparency is great. Selective transparency carefully presented by intelligence agencies to create a narrative and manipulate the public is information warfare, not transparency. This a kind of manipulation designed to give a false sense of transparency while manipulating the audience towards a position the FSB wanted them to have. Were the GOP, DNC, Greens, Libertarians, et al, required to have open records of comms, then this wouldn’t matter. We’d all be seeing all sorts of dirty laundry. Aiming that selective (and deliberately selected) transparency at one party alone was done with the intent of poisoning voters against a target and it worked in manipulating opinion quite well, as you illustrate.
Two, the leaks were not just DNC emails. Russia also dumped the DNC’s oppo research file on Trump (this was the first dump predating the emails). They also dumped the whole DCCC’s set of oppo research files and campaign strategies for the House. That’s not airing dirty laundry, that’s stealing an opponent’s playbook and giving it to the competitor to tilt the playing field.
9 Likes
What reality are you recognizing? Because from where I’m reclining, you are attacking a case I never made. You implied there was a double standard at play, and I half-agreed with you and gave a few reasons why one exists.
Just imagine what all his crooked pals were thinking when he let that shit out. I mean it must have been a massive group facepalm.
Oh well I’m glad you’ve got that crack team of intelligence investigators on the case.
“Suspicions raised” eh? Check!
That’s not a war, it’s a marketing slogan.
6 Likes
Much like “Airport Security” is.
4 Likes
Or “TWAT,” as the history books will inevitably refer to it.
6 Likes
It is unlikely, with a GOP majority in the House and Senate, that Trump will be impeached for colluding with a foreign power to win the presidential election.
Maybe they have material they’re blackmailing Republicans and Democrats with right now… The FBI has stated that the RNC was compromised and I have little reason to doubt that, esp. after Trump’s denial was so hamfisted, and since those kind of orgs. typically have very flawed security practices. Maybe the dossier is true and Russia is currently blackmailing our sitting president. Hard to know, and hard to find any consolation in thinking an information warfare attack we don’t really have any sense or knowledge of the full scope of could have been worse, especially since the attacks are ongoing and APT28 has broadened the scope of the institutions they’re going after. It’s not like this is over.
7 Likes
